Merchandising of food for immediate consumption is currently a large and rapidly expanding business. For convenience of the customer, it is usual to provide a cheap, disposable tray of chip board, plastic or the like for carrying sandwiches, snacks and beverages to the point of consumption such as a table, seat of an automobile or picnic blanket. In some arrangements, separate trays are made available for cups of beverage. In others, a single tray is provided with compartments for beverage cups and flat surfaces for support of sandwiches and other solid food.
It is common practice that beverage cup compartments be so formed as to inhibit dislodging or upset of the cups during transport to the point of consumption or while resting on a surface at the point of consumption. The latter consideration can be particularly important when the comestibles are consumed on such precarious surfaces as car seats or blankets. Stability of cups is generally provided by a member spaced above the bottom of the cup retaining area of the tray which bears against the side of the cup.
Because cups of different size are used for different volumes of beverage, it has been necessary to provide alternative trays or to so space the side supports that the cup reception areas will accept the largest cups, with consequent lessened security for smaller cups.
Carry-out trays adapted to consumption in cars, on blankets and other precarious supports are advantageously of a structure which provides a measure of rigidity such that the whole is stabilized. A particularly ingenious system of cross-bracing of such trays is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,638,849, as a flat blank of plastic provided with hinged flaps and locking devices which can be erected to a stabilized tray particularly adapted for support on the seat of an automobile.
Need exists for a disposable and simple one-piece tray adapted to reception of both liquid and solid comestibles which will retain different size cups with good stability, which is ready for immediate use and which has inherent stability. That need is satisfied and other objects and advantages are provided by a molded carry-out tray shown in the annexed drawings.